Héritière sans égale

Chapitre 12

Barry released her grip, and Julie's eyes were filled with tears as she touched her neck, which had been so tightly constricted that she could barely breathe.

Ray comforted him, "It's alright."

Julie gave Ray a cold look, said nothing, and turned to leave.

As the group walked off the wooden bridge, something that looked like metal flashed, but no one noticed it.

That's the small silver metal plaque we saw before, with the words "I love you" engraved on it.

A year passed quickly. Nothing new seemed to happen during the year; at least for Julie, it was a peaceful year. The only thing that was not peaceful was her own state of mind.

It was already summer vacation, and most of the students had gone home, but Julie was still typing on her laptop in her dorm room.

The girl in the same room has come to urge her for the third time.

"It's time. Come on, your butt's all flattened from sitting on it." The girl handed Julie the teddy bear. "Let's go."

.

Julie shook her head: "I've changed my mind, I'm not going."

The girl laughed, "You look like neither a human nor a ghost! Get in the car." She saw that Julie was still...

Unable to move, he had no choice but to come over and pull Julie: "Hey, come on. It's so nice of you to go home for summer vacation, you can soak up the sun. Let's go."

"

When Julie stood in that familiar yard, her feelings were complicated. Looking at the low wall still covered with green shrubs and her familiar home, she hesitated and didn't go inside.

"Julie?"

She turned around and saw her mother standing in the yard. In that instant, Julie felt as if she had been transported to another world, and overwhelmed with emotion, the two embraced.

“I miss you so much,” Julie said. It was the truth; she really missed her mother.

The table was almost entirely filled with fish, the most common dish here. Over the past year, the university cafeteria had changed Julie's taste in food a lot. Even so, the aroma of her mother's fish dishes still whetted her appetite.

But as soon as she saw the fish, the scene from a year ago flashed through her mind again...

The mother was observing her daughter's expression; clearly, her daughter had something on her mind, and it was something that was bothering her.

"Is the fish delicious?" Mom asked, staring at Julie.

Julie jolted awake. She swallowed hard. Yes, ever since returning home, back to this familiar environment, that inexplicable feeling...

The fear had been haunting her. Although she tried to convince herself it was just a feeling, it wouldn't go away, causing her to suddenly...

Suddenly I lost all appetite.

"I wanted to buy a shark, but it's not in season." The mother sighed. Actually, she knew that wasn't the reason for her daughter's loss of appetite, because she clearly saw how much her daughter drooled when the fish was first served, but she couldn't understand what had made her suddenly lose her appetite.

"You're not doing drugs, are you?" Mom suddenly asked a very strange question.

Julie was startled: "What?"

Mom gave a wry smile: "I was just trying to scare you, hoping to get an honest response."

"No, Mom, I didn't."

The mother believed her because Julie's expression didn't resemble that of a drug addict. In fact, the mother had never seen a drug addict before; in today's drug-ridden world, finding a few grams of heroin was no harder than buying some aspirin. But a mother still knew her daughter well.

"What is it?" Mom knew it wasn't something that could be answered in a few words, but she asked anyway. Julie remained silent; she could only keep quiet.

"Oh, you look terrible," Mom said, clearing the table of food.

Julie said quietly, "This year has been tough."

Yes, she hadn't escaped that shadow for the past year, that old memory that used to wake her from nightmares at night and leave her feeling dazed and miserable during the day. Her studies were barely maintained by her meager intelligence, making her one of the worst students in the class. She didn't know how to face her mother's questions. Thankfully, her mother only asked a few questions and probably hadn't seen that disastrous report card yet…

She stood up and looked at the photo of her hugging her father placed to the side. In the photo, she was being affectionate and kissing her father.

Suddenly remembering something, Mom said, "Your letter arrived today."

Julie's heart sank. The report card had arrived after all. It seemed unlikely she could hide it from her mother any longer. Now she needed to find a reason to explain everything...

“What you’ve sent isn’t the report card; the report card arrived last week.” Her mother’s words hit Julie like a hammer blow, making her see stars.

"I know my grades aren't good, but the summer program was pretty good," Julie explained with a forced smile.

The mother's voice was almost devoid of emotion, her tone very calm: "Of course, the school said this..."

This is the last chance.

Julie knew her mother's temper all too well, and she didn't know how to explain this phenomenon. She couldn't exactly say it was because of the corpse, or that our murder... Ah, right, murder! That was the crux of the problem that had been bothering her for a year.

“The situation… well, it can’t be that bad, can it?” Julie’s mind was a mess, and she stammered, not knowing what she was saying.

Mom was clearly angry. She picked up the bowl and said, "What's wrong with you? You never call, and you never come home, you good-for-nothing!"

"Dad must be furious." With that, he walked out of the restaurant.

Julie looked at the letter on the table. The handwriting was unfamiliar, but the characters were written very neatly.

It was all capital letters, and each letter was almost the same size; she had never seen it written like that before.

Julie opened the letter. It was very short, so short that it could be read in a glance, but it took her a full five minutes to read it.

There was only one sentence on that piece of paper: "I know what you did last summer!"

Those few chilling words were enough to drive Julie mad, but her shock was only momentary upon first seeing them; she had calmed down. She spent most of her time studying the letter—it had no postmark and no mailing address.

(4)

Obviously, it's impossible to determine who wrote it from the letter. Besides those four, who else could possibly know what happened last summer?

The mother came out from the inner room and saw her daughter still reading the letter. She casually asked, "What is it? What does the letter say?"

"What?"

Julie quickly put the letter away, forced a smile, and said, "It's nothing." Then she stood up.

He then rushed out.

That night, Julie was still studying the letter when suddenly she seemed to hear a sound.

She pushed open the window; it was quiet outside, the moonlight was like water, and the shadows of the trees swayed gently.

Julie felt a sense of tension and a nameless fear creeping over her. She closed the window tightly and locked it.

The night passed peacefully, but Julie couldn't sleep a wink; she was terrified by the letter.

The next morning, Julie drove the family's Chevrolet out. She headed straight for the grocery store on the southeast corner of town. Before she graduated last year, the store was run by Elsa, and of course, it was still owned by Helen's father. Julie wanted to get Helen's address and phone number in New York from Elsa; she needed to contact Helen immediately.

When the car stopped outside the shop, Julie saw Elsa bustling about inside.

Elsa was directing the workers as they moved goods. One worker accidentally dropped a packaged item on the ground, making a loud noise.

"Be careful, this thing is called glass, it will break!" Elsa shouted angrily, her voice becoming somewhat shrill with anger, showing that her temper was still as fierce as ever.

Just then, Julie stepped into the shop.

Elsa instinctively put on a smiling face to greet the customer, but when she saw who it was, she couldn't help but exclaim:

Okay, let's see who's here.

Julie gave Elsa a perfunctory hug, then immediately asked, "I'm looking for Helen. She's in New York."

Is that your number?

Elsa raised her eyebrows in surprise, deliberately making a affected expression: "A New York number?"

"Yes, I need to talk to her."

“Helen doesn’t have a New York number,” Elsa said dismissively. “She works in the perfume department.”

To your left.

Her words had barely left her lips when a loud shattering sound rang out behind them. Julie quickly turned around, and there, not far away, was Helen...

He frantically tried to steady a bottle.

"Julie?" Helen smiled awkwardly, clearly having already seen Julie.

Julie walked over expressionlessly.

Helen asked, "When did you get back?"

"yesterday."

It's so good to see you.

"What's wrong with New York?" Julie asked, puzzled.

Helen hesitated, glancing at her sister in the distance, and whispered, "I went... for a while... but it didn't work."

Julie pulled out the letter: "I just received it."

Helen looked at Julie with confusion, then took the letter. She glanced at the paper briefly, and her face turned pale instantly.

"Oh my god."

“Someone knows,” Julie said, feigning indifference.

How did you know?

Julie didn't speak, but instead turned her gaze to another corner of the shop, where Elsa was watching them suspiciously. Although Elsa couldn't hear their hushed conversation, her intuition told her something was amiss. Trying to suppress her curiosity, Elsa, under the watchful eyes of Julie and Helen, shifted her gaze elsewhere.

Julie also looked away: "I don't know."

Helen looked at Julie cautiously: "We were so careful."

Julie speculated, "There might be someone there, maybe he saw it."

"Who? It's been a year."

Helen's voice was perhaps a bit too loud, because Elsa immediately turned her face this way again, but she immediately noticed that Julie was watching her, so she had no choice but to slowly walk into the inner room that served as a storeroom.

Julie sighed softly, "I don't know."

Helen asked, "Does Barry know?" Julie shook her head.

Outside the gate of the Barry family's yard.

Julie looked at the familiar courtyard, yet for some reason, she felt a sense of estrangement. It was clearly a large courtyard.

The Barry family's wealth was clearly second to none in the town.